Duty

It's past 12am and a call comes in: "SCT Darrell Neo has to report to camp for CDT duty at 7.15am later today". It also happens to be Mother's Day today.

I love you mum, and I wish to spend Mother's Day with you, especially since dad and sis are overseas, but your dear son has to serve the nation by sitting beside a phone in his company office because some other cadet decides that it sure is convenient to report sick on their duty day.

This reminds me so much of the guard duty on my sister's birthday.

Miss you much

Here marks the end of an amazing week, amazing because it is so eventful.

Field camp was from Monday to Friday, where everyone got to do fun stuff all day long. The days were spent learning about outfield, prowling around in the jungle trails in tactical formation, crawling in mud, keeping a look out for Wild Boars and Artillery Strikes, sleeping in basha tents, digging a shellscrape coffin and sleeping in it, sleeping cowboy out in the open, getting my rifled stunned by my PC, etc.

And coming back from all that, on Saturday we were given the privilege of attempting our second IPPT, which I thankfully managed to scrape a pass by just meeting the bare minimum mark for pull-ups and SBJ. No more Remedial Training YESSS.

Saturday was also book out day, and I went to eat delicious Japanese food at Tampines 1, and after that spent 6 hours of quality time cycling with my siblings from 8.30pm to 2.30am.

Sunday was spent watching an entertaining movie adaptation of Kaiji.

All in all, a rather pleasant week. I am happy =D

Flu

Life kinda sucks right now, it's my last book out before field camp and I have this terrible flu that stole away my sense of taste. I literally cannot taste anything at all - drinking milk feels exactly like drinking chilled water. That also means that it's quite pointless for me to eat comfort food or fast food. There goes my plans to feast before field camp. O wells.

National Service - Basic Military Training

BMT is funny. It is the only place I know of where bearing refers to how one is dressed (e.g. Shirts tucked in) while dressing refers aligning oneself by checking his bearing or relative position to other members of the platoon.

Moving On...

Moving on from the experience of a lifetime that was IB, we slowly head towards the future and adulthood. In Singapore, all male citizens and PRs are required by the Law to attend a period of National Service (lasting about 1 year 10 months) once they reach their teens, where they turn Boys into Men. I'll begin to fufill my duties as a National Serviceman starting this Saturday. As a memento before I go in, here's a picture of us before we go.

Ocean's Twelve

Results Part 2

And so option 2) becomes reality, and the nice number written on the certificate given to me today is the innocuous looking 4 followed by 2, otherwise seen as 42. Yay! But I'm still half a point below the average of 2007's 4.9 class. Now you get an idea of how imba that class is.

Results

The last results I'll receive for quite some time. The way I see it, only one of three options may happen:

1) I get <38 points, o wells I got what I deserved for putting in so little effort for such an important event
2) I get 38-42 points, hrmm not bad, though I would still be considered quite an inferior person paper-academically as compared to the peers I have been with over the past 6 years
3) I get >42 points, whoa dneo the lucksack strikes again, damn I love it when such things happen

See, considering all possibilities, 1) has a 20% chance of happening, 2) has a 70% chance of happening, 3) has a 10% chance of happening. So mathematically speaking, that means I am only twice as likely to flunk my IB compared to spectacularly flying colours it. Not bad odds I would say.

I'm back!

No I'm not. I'm off again. Cya in a week's time.

Leaving... on a jet plane

I'm leaving on a jet plane tonight to the land of awesome aka Japan. I shall be uncontactable for the next week or so, if anyone has any burning desire to contact me... Well you can't. Just email me lol and I'll see if I can check. Cya in a week's time.

It's 4pm and I haven't packed my bags. O wells.

Lord have mercy, rock you

Announcement

Hai Guys I've been quite the busy after IB is over, busy having nightmares about IB not being over that is. So here's an announcement to anyone who is looking for popular me during the hols in December:

I'll be away in Japan from 11th Dec to 20th Dec, dropping by Tokyo abit, but mostly going Hokkaido with my family, aunt, uncle and cousins to ski. Anyone looking for stuff in Japan that's easy to find in Japan and easy to transport back, please just send me a list of what you want, and I'll see what I can do. Chances of you getting what you want is about 20%, but hey, there's still a chance.

After that, I'll be dropping by said aunt's house in Shanghai from 21st Dec to 28th Dec. And that's about it.

Also, I just got a new compact camera so I should be taking many pics of the snowy whiteness overseas. Yay. The 'Travels of Kagami' may also continue. ^_^

In short, I'll be away from the country from 11th - 28th Dec. Yea so don't bother looking for me, cause you won't find me.

Prom Night

In less than 24 hour's time it would be my first (and last) prom night. Let's make this a memorable one.

By the way, I have been quite busy over the last few days with lot's of stuff planned out. If my 'diary of stuff planned for the period of time between end of IB and results of IB' is right, I will have something on everyday till the 5th of Dec, with only the 3rd of Dec free. Guys, so hurry book a slot with busy me if you have anything on. XD

Of Uniforms and Uniform Distributions

This will be the last day of my life where I get to officially wear my school's uniform for a proper reason, not counting the day of release of exam results where I'll (hopefully) get to walk on stage in my home attire. I don't know what other people's sentiments towards the school uniform are, but mine are simple and few - It doesn't look half bad, It is comfortable, It is slightly troublesome in regards to arcade-going/lanning/going to undesirable places where little schoolboys aren't allowed and I like the tie. That just about sums it up and yet ends another (and one of the last) chapter of my childhood.

Speaking of uniforms, I know ALL about uniform distributions yay. That's because it's going to be tested for today's Mathematics Stats HL Paper 3, and I know everything about any topic that will be tested for an upcoming paper (upcoming meaning in 16 hours). For all those people out there who don't see any useful application of such topics of math in our future lives, here's one undeniable case example to prove their effectiveness: You... get a head start when learning about mathematics statistics in university. An example would be my sister, who is currently enrolled in some course in SMU (not to be confused with lovely Amu) studying business. She has to take a (probably core) module called mathematics statistics, and it is exactly what we are learning now. So if you want to slack later in your university life, you can start studying now and then you can slack all the way through that one course of university. Isn't it fun? It is so useful to learn about such stuff in Junior College just so that we can learn it again in university.

Joy of Studying

1 Paper/Subject/Day left - There's one marble left in my container, it goes away tomorrow. Yattearuyo.

I have finally experienced it - the elusive feeling known as joy from studying. Studying is a boring tedious process which students go through because they have to, and this holds true for me most of the time. However, there comes a time when one can appreciate the knowledge gained from mugging, and view mugging not as a chore but as a fun experience instead. Actually this may not be true, because I was really really tired when I was last minute mugging at 12.30am - 2.30am, and since I had to mug everything anyway, there is the possibility that I brainwashed myself into believing that mugging is fun. Anyways, it's not too late for this realization, and now that I'm no stranger to the joys of studying, maybe this will prove useful for university.

I had a lot of time to pass at home after today's morning paper, so I went to watch shoujo anime shows for fun XD.

Amu from Shugo Chara is, as I expected, very cute <3.

Yumeiro Patissiere is a typical shoujo show with lots of pink everywhere!, magical fairies, hearts, roses, strawberries and big sparkly eyes!~ (and bishounens but who cares about those things anyway?). It is also about subarashii cakey and subarashii sense of taste.

But with so many plus points it would inevitably lack in other departments, and here's one such case of bad logic:
*Mama whips out a golf club and addresses Papa* - "I found this under your bed when I was cleaning your room this morning! You keep buying golf clubs despite being so bad at it... Yet you still intend to refuse [your daughter's request to transfer to a culinary school]?!"

Personally I don't see the logical flow of the argument, if you do, please enlighten me.

Time is relative - it passes faster during exams

*Timestamp* Sunday, 15th November 2009, 10pm - 64 hours to go.

2 papers of 2 subjects in 2 days - it has finally come down to this. The numbers are aligned! Oh noes, and they'll continue to be aligned till to 1p 1s 1d (which is 7 in binary) and to 0p 0s 0d (which is.. 0 in binary, no shit). Then the world will be destroyed and I will go to the movie theatres to watch that happening in the blockbuster movie called 2012. Okayy guys let's do this.

"Why does everyone think I'm so owning, I think you make me look good" - The sister hehehe.
Now this is where I go "Keikaku Doori". (For any english commentary writing student out there, this would be a good time to focus on the literary devices of juxtaposition and contrast)

*Timestamp* Monday, 16th November 2009, 11pm - 39 hours to go o_O.

"What the freak, how do you expect me to know that the earth's age?"
"Well, you know that the dinosaurs lived hundreds of millions of years ago."
"But, but, the earth is not a dinosaur... =( "
".................... *speechless* ...................."
"XD "

*Timestamp* Monday, 16th November 2009, 11.30pm - 38.5 hours to go....

Physics Notes and Jokes

Notes:

• Albedo is the ratio of reflected to incident light. Albedo is for earth is about 0.3 <-- this means earth is a selfish thingyobject than only releases about 30% of the light it kopes from the sun.
• Alt Codes are fun!~:
  (Physics related) ° - 0176 ± - 0177 ² - 0178 ³ - 0179
  (Copyright related) © - 0169 ® - 0174 ™ - 0153

Jokes:

• I have finally found out why my power level is so low - Power is defined as rate of doing work. Then begs the next question, why is SZ's gaming power level so high?
  
• Outline an appropriate use for photovoltaic cells - To operate solar powered torch lights <-- Marked wrong, cause the next thing you know there'll be wind powered fans.
• I was reading wiki on eV (Electron Volt), then 1 eV = 1.60×10⁻¹⁹ J or 1 eV/amu is 96.5 MJ/kg. Click on amu plz XD
  

And the exams are three-quarters past

Day 13 - 4p 2s (3d) 4d - Tiem to start on Physics mugging, jya minna ikuyo yaa~ to~

I was packing up my physics notes and had a great discovery, I only had notes for half the syllabus OH NOES! So I rummaged through under my table (which I haven't touched in about a year) and found last year's physics notes all nicely in a file. Yes! Then I found the chemistry IA file (oh i actually had one, didn't know that) along with... the 'book of imba' otherwise known as the Tim Kirk Physics IB Study Guide book which I remembered buying but forgot where I put it. Okay so I now have slightly more than a day's worth of time to read through the entire IB Physics HL syllabus. Go me.

Oh and something amusing happened today. My dad was watching the hokkien drama serial that lasts forever, then (spoilers!) the chairman of the company in the show died, so one of the other main characters of the show was plotting to take over it. Cue rain scene and a soliloquy by the plotting dude in front of the company office, when... lightning struck the tree beside him as he laughed at the heavens for being unfair to him. Just at that moment, the tv screen went blank and the screen was filled with white noise and sadako crawled out and 'Signal unavailable' flashed across the screen. Lol the lightning really struck the tv and stopped the show.

Day 12 - 4p 2s (3d) 5d - Woke up at 3pm yesterday (Friday), slept from 9pm to 10.45am today (Saturday) and slacked whole (remaining of the) day whee!~

I have come out with a great plan to defeat the extended length of the IB exams period. Because it is quite of a hassle to just sit around and twiddle your thumbs, cause your thumbs will get sore and you won't be able to write properly for the exams, you should just sleep early and wake up late, thereby reducing the amount of awake hours to spend. Or you could sleep normally and spend some of your awake hours slacking, whichever suits you more.

Day 11 - 4p 2s (3d) 6d - I have the same level of confidence for English A1 SL Paper 2 as the first paper, so that is sort of a good thing. Well it's good knowing that you wrote your best piece for the exam that actually matters, but it's not really nice knowing that your peers' power level of writing is still quite abit higher than yours. Yay, English A1 is totally-gone!!~

Went out to slack for the first time since the start of the exams period. So fun. And some people with certain subject combinations finished their whole IB experience yesterday on their 10th day, which isn't really fair. But then again I shouldn't be complaining cause the Bio people have to wait 6 days to take their last paper lasting a grand total of 1 hour and 4 questions. At least I got my Physics to study to take up my time.

And the exams are more than half-past

Day 10 - 5p 3s (4d) 7d - To whoever who asks how I did for English A1 SL Paper 1, my reply is that I did better than usual. (Note: I usually get 11-13 out of 25, so ya)

English A1 is half-gone!!~

Day 9 - 6p 3s (5d) 8d - Another day, another conversation worth recording, and finally it does.

"So what have you been doing these days?"
"Waiting for IB exams to end"
"Lol, so just sit back, twiddle your thumbs, and wait for the days to pass?"
"Exactly"

Day 8 - 6p 3s (5d) 9d - Another paper down, another subject down. End of Econs!
As a friend puts it - the burning/tearing up of notes: How can we bear to do it?

Breaking News - Japan to harvest solar energy from space
This is how to do it the japanese way:
1) Gather a few of your country's top companies, e.g. Mitsubushi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu, Sharp.
2) Set a deadline, e.g. 2030.
3) Ask companies to build hugeass floating photovoltaic dishes by deadline.
4) Send hugeass floating dishes into space by deadline too.
5) Collect power from the sun with hugeass floating dishes...
6) Charge up!...
7) Pew lazers downs onto earth!
8) ???
9) Profit!
10) It's really true lol.

Day 7 - 7p 4s (6d) 10d - I've learnt so much from reading the Econs notes (for the first time lol), such as finally understanding topic 4 (it wasn't so hard after all).

Government failure (or non-market failure) is the public sector analogy to market failure and occurs when a government intervention causes a more inefficient allocation of goods and resources than would occur without that intervention. =D

Day 6 - 7p 4s (6d) 11d - Have been slacking whee... (you can see by the lack of updates)

(Will edit it when I come back, because people from Bedok have to leave for exams now)(Edited)

Day 5

7p 4s (6d) 12d - I'm still getting used to the feeling that one subject is OVER and totally done with. So this marks the conclusion of four plus two years of studying a subject, though the real conclusion is when results are out in two month's time.

In other news, taking two papers yesterday wasn't as bad as I imagined, though I could have done somewhat better for math (read: better time management). Ahh well must look forward and not ruminate over the past, only 12 more days to go!~

Also, the game Clockwords is fun. =D

Day 4

9p 4s 13d - Slowly chipping away at the 'p's and 'd's. Who wants to invade Russia? Ahh vectors coming up.

"We have eyes in the front of our head. We have fingernails. We have eyes, teeth and long legs. We have evolved so that we could chase down smaller, stupider creatures, kill them and eat them." -Chef Anthony Bourdain defending eating meat

Day 3

10p 4s 14d - That's one subject down and four more to go.

The alternating morning and afternoon exam timetable is quite lol.